by Terri Grimes
Champagne Books Presents
Shake, Rattle And Haunt
By
Terri Grimes
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Champagne Books
www.champagnebooks.com
Copyright 2012 by Terri Grimes
ISBN 9781927454848
December 2012
Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey
Produced in Canada
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Champagnebooks.com (or a retailer of your choice) and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
Dedicated to the ones I love.
One
I’m not sure what I envisioned when the icy breeze blew past me on the landing. To be quite honest, at first I thought it was coming from the open window at the end of the hallway. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness I realized the second floor window was closed tighter than a nun’s legs at a whore convention.
But I sure wasn’t expecting the brief squeeze to my right buttock, followed by a shove so forceful my feet flew upward, landing me flat on my backside, on the cold black and white checked tiled floor of the second floor hallway bathroom. The heavy wooden door slammed shut, locking me in.
“Hey,” I hollered. “Let me out of here!” I rattled the doorknob, twisting and jerking it until my wrists were sore. What the heck?
“This is so not cool,” I screeched as I pounded on the bathroom door. “Damn it, open this door right now!”
I heard a soft chuckle on the other side of the wood. That really set me off. I took a few deep breaths in a futile attempt to calm down. Turning on the light, I could see in the bathroom mirror my face turning all shades of red with a few splotches of purple thrown in for good measure. I was beyond pissed. I rammed the door with my shoulder. “Let me out, you oversexed perverted son of a bitch!”
“Flash me a crotch shot and I might think about it,” a faint voice replied.
What? Oh no he didn’t. “You’d better let me out or—or, or else.”
“Sorry, sugar-tits, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for, although I would have accepted a shot of bare boob.”
I tightened my lips and clenched my fists. That was it. If I’d even the tiniest notion before that we could both reside in the same house, this was the clincher. Nope, no way Jose. Forget it, muchacho. Hell no. He’d better hope I never got out of this bathroom, because when I did, I was making that call. My potty-mouthed interloper would be out on his can faster than he could say “clam-burger,” which by the way happened to be one of his favorite words. Enough was enough and after two months of this crap, I’d reached my limit.
I slid down the bathroom wall, inch by inch, until I plopped onto the cold, tiled floor. Hugging my legs with my arms, I rested my head on my knees. There was nothing to do but wait it out.
Forty-five minutes later, as my eyelids drooped and my head nodded, I heard the soft click of the lock being released. I jumped to my feet so fast I became dizzy. Ignoring my momentary loss of equilibrium, I barreled out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
Stopping next to the dark mahogany side table at the top of the stairs, I drew in a deep breath, then eased it out. There was only one thing I could do in a situation like this.
My hand lowered to the phone and picked up the receiver. We’d see who’d have the last laugh now. He had no idea who he was messing with.
Two
As I replaced the receiver, I felt a lot better about my situation. After listening to my rant, which bordered on hysteria, Urban Ghost Hunter’s case manager, Amanda Winston, agreed to come out to access my problem the very next day. It was like a black cloud had lifted.
With a smile on my face, I gathered cleaning supplies and began the arduous task of dusting and straightening the downstairs areas. Sure, I knew she would be looking for ghosts, not dust bunnies, but a little spit shine here and there never hurt when company was coming. Upstairs would have benefited from a quick polish as well, since she’d likely want to see the main area of activity, but the morning was going so well, I didn’t want to push my luck. Faced with the option of possibly irritating the ghost by running the Hoover as opposed to a dusty second floor, I chose the latter.
Thirty minutes later, I wasn’t so ambitious. My household chores complete, the quiet of the house disconcerted me especially following on the heels of the activity in the early hours of the morning that spawned my calling Urban Ghost Hunters.
Desperate for distraction, I went into the kitchen and filled the filter-lined basket of the coffee maker with fragrant grounds. While the beverage brewed, I set out my favorite mug. No need for sugar or creamer. I drank it black. I rustled in the pantry, pulling out an expired package of ginger snaps, setting them next to my cup even though I probably wouldn’t eat them. All of that took up three minutes, at best. I needed something, anything, to occupy my attention and keep my focus off what awaited me on the second floor.
I shivered, thinking about it.
“Work. I should work.”
Carrying my steaming mug, I left the unopened cookies in the kitchen and settled at my desk. I did website and infrastructure design from my office, in the small room adjacent to the kitchen. Being able to set my own hours, I enjoyed working from home. After graduating from college, my best friend Timmy and I had pooled our money and opened an Information Technology company. With both of us working out of my house, our overhead was minuscule.
Timmy was the mouth of the operation, calling corporations, retails sites and even blogging homemakers to sell our services. I was content to do the grunt work in implementing the design and infrastructure services he sold. Our jobs ranged from setting up a customized website for a mommy blogger to creating an intricate intranet for a major corporation. With Timmy’s mouth and my brain, we made a good team. For me it was a delight to have a morning commute which consisted of ten steps from the kitchen to the office.
I’d always thought I was fortunate to be able to work from home, but with the recent events I wasn’t feeling so warm and fuzzy about it anymore.
I took a big gulp of the steaming coffee.
“Shit!” I’d burnt the living bejeesus out of my mouth.
My yelp echoed in the unnatural silence, making me even more jittery than before. For no apparent reason, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I turned to look behind me. There was nothing there.
“Focus, Gertie.” I was going to have a difficult time designing the consumer tracking web banner for my newest client, Baxter and Burns if I couldn’t keep my hands steady. It’s not easy to draw a straight line with hands shaking like a Mormon after a double-shot espresso.
“I give up.” I pushed my chair back from my desk and stood. Passing through the kitchen, I grabbed my purse from the counter on my way out the back door. Screw this shit, I was heading to the mall and didn’t plan on coming back until I was too tired to care about the fact that a ghost roamed my second floor hallway.
~ * ~
>
Several hours later, after hitting almost every store in the mall, my feet screamed in protest.
“Okay, I concede. Just get me a little further so I can find somewhere to sit down and I’ll even prop you up,” I coaxed my shopping weary feet. They must have agreed because I managed to hoof it all the way to the other end of the mall to a chain restaurant. More importantly, to a chain restaurant with a bar.
After walking into the bar area of Figbee’s, I was disappointed. Ever since they passed the no smoking in bars and restaurants ordinance two years prior, a bar just didn’t seem like a bar to me. Granted, I didn’t smoke, but what was a bar without the haze of cigarette smoke? It was like trying to get your drunk on in a Cracker Barrel or a Chuck E. Cheese. Lame, you know. Not that Figbee’s was much better with or without the smoke. Nonetheless, I was determined to swill down some liquid courage before heading home. How odd that a house should come alive at night when it was the dead doing the deed. With any luck, this would be the last time I would have to fear walking into my own home.
“Rum and coke with a twist of lime, please,” I said to the bartender, settling myself on the stool. I took a quick inventory of the room while I waited for my drink. I’d learned a long time ago that as a single woman, I should be aware of my surroundings, even if it was just the bar area of a cheesy chain family restaurant attached to an upscale suburban shopping mall.
The room was pretty tame, but then again I’d expect it to be tame early on a Tuesday evening. To the left of me, sitting at a table in the far corner, was a man in his mid to late forties, nursing a beer while he chowed down on a bowl of pretzels as he watched the game.
Every now and then, he’d shake a fist at the television screen, causing a cloud of pretzel dust to drift down on his table. “We were robbed! Get rid of the ref,” he screamed, startling me so much I almost choked on my drink. One more outburst like that one and I might be tempted to lace his beer with a Valium, if I had one. He didn’t want to throw down with me. After the past two months of living with a vile, inappropriate ghost I was a woman on the edge.
To my right sat two young women, mothers judging by the way they were oohing and ahhing over each other’s pictures of tow headed infants. The shopping bags emblazoned with the Baby Gap logo across the front further substantiated my belief that they were stopping to toss back a strawberry daiquiri or two before heading home to a frazzled hubby and obnoxious kids. Or maybe it was an obnoxious husband and a set of frazzled kids.
As I gulped down the last drop of my second rum and coke, sucking on an errant ice cube that made its way into my mouth, I considered cutting my losses and grabbing a bottle of white wine from the Sip and Gulp to drink at home in front of the television. Maybe if I was lucky I could pass out on the couch.
I glanced over at the entrance. The heavens parted and the angels sang. In walked a six-foot tall, long drink of utter deliciousness, otherwise known as the man of my dreams. Okay, truth be known, I was sort of seeing two of him, so it might have been the men of dreams instead of the singular man. Yeah, even though I’d only downed two rum and cokes, I was already getting my buzz on. What can I say; I’m a cheap drunk. But, anyway, two men of my dreams were better than none. The way my love life was going these days, I would have settled for the puppy of my dreams. Any wet nose would have been fine by me at that point.
My drunkenness impairing my reserved and cautious nature, I was delighted when he pulled out the barstool next to mine and sat. He held up one finger to grab the bartender’s attention. After ordering a neat Grey Goose martini, he turned to me and pointed at my drink. “And bring her another, um,” he hesitated. “What is it you’re drinking, Miss?”
“Rum and coke and no thank you, I can buy my own.”
“Another rum and coke then,” he said to the bartender who watched us with an amused expression on his face.
I’d turned to my bar mate with the intention of setting him straight. “If you’re trying to get me drunk, you should know I’m already halfway there.” It didn’t quite come out as I planned.
He smiled, flashing a rack of straight, brilliantly white teeth. They paired well with his tanned face and chiseled jaw line. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut as my vision focused long enough for me to take in the full package. His dark brown hair was neatly trimmed, ending just below his ears. With a slight wave to the thick mass, it gave him an almost twin-like appearance to Colin Firth with a dash of Cary Grant thrown in for good measure. As I met his gaze, I couldn’t help but notice the twinkle in his hazel eyes. My heart beat a couple of extra beats, which I attributed to the alcohol.
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you drunk. I’m just not a big fan of drinking alone.”
I could think of nothing more brilliant to say than, “Oh.”
“So what’s a nice girl like you doing sitting alone in a bar on a Tuesday night, getting hammered? Shouldn’t you be at home making dinner for your husband and two point five kids?”
“Two point five kids? Husband? Not on your life.”
“Isn’t that what all women want? A husband, two point five kids and a brick house in the suburbs with the two car garage?”
“I don’t know what sort of women you hang around, but not all of us want two point five kids and… and what the hell is up with the third kid anyway? Since he only gets credit for being half of a kid, does that mean he’s really short or is there some crazy census worker out there chopping kids in half?” I cocked my head to the side as I pondered the possibility of half a child. It was apparent, even to me, that I wasn’t making much sense.
Tilting his head back, he laughed, his Adams apple rippling in his corded neck.
“I don’t know,” he said when his laughter abated. “I’m not the one that wants the two point five kids. You tell me.”
“Don’t look at me,” I protested. “I don’t want two point five kids either.”
There was an uncomfortable pause as I looked down at my drink. I wondered if he felt it too as we each took a more than healthy swig from our glasses.
“Is your wife in the mall shopping?”
He shook his head, the muscle in his arm flexing as he raised it, signaling the bartender for another round for both of us.
“No wife. I was picking up a piece of equipment from the camera store next door.”
My heart thumped faster again when I heard him say there wasn’t a wife in the picture. “Ah, an amateur photographer?”
“Nope, ’fraid not. I take a picture now and then for pleasure, but most of what I shoot is in my line of work. So, I guess you’d say
it’s for business, not pleasure.”
“Humph,” I snorted. I was onto him now. Sometimes it took me a while to figure someone out, but I had him pegged pretty quickly. A wannabe porn photographer. I’d seen his type before. Those overly handsome types were all alike. Next thing I knew he’d be asking me to come back to his place to see his glass collection. I turned on my stool to face the other side of the bar.
I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I took my time turning and attempted to give him my “who the hell do you think you are” look. It must have come out more of an “I think you’re hot and would like nothing more than to jump your bones” look, because his face broke out into that wide, white toothed, delicious smile again.
“You didn’t answer me before. What brings you to a place like this?”
My mind went blank as I stared into his magnificent hazel eyes. A girl could get lost in those peepers. I felt my nipples pop to full attention. Wretched traitors.
“Well?”
“The buffalo wings?” I gave him a tentative smile. Figbee’s did have some awesome wings, or so I’d heard, never having tried them myself. I wasn’t a big fan of saucy fingers.
He shook his head a couple of times while the sexiest half smile played on his lips.
“Low blood sugar when I was in the girdle aisle at Macy’s?”
He continued to shake his head. “I
’m not buying it.”
“Well, I would hope not, because you don’t need a girdle,” I joked, taking a quick peek out of the corner of my eyes at his waist.
He gave an obligatory laugh. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to share your real reason for drowning in a vat of rum and coke on a Tuesday night, that’s your right. I respect that.”
“Don’t forget the lime twist. It’s not a true rum and coke without the lime twist.”
“Okay. A vat of rum and coke with a twist of lime. Better?”
“Yes,” I said as I swiveled on my barstool, making myself dizzy in the process.
“Whoa! Careful there.” He caught me before I toppled.
I lifted my head, startled to see his face so close to mine. My eyes locked with his and the “kicked in the gut” sensation returned to my stomach. My breath caught in my throat and my mouth went dry as all thoughts of what I’d been about to say flew out of my head. My jaw went slack as I stared at him.
His gaze turned to one of concern. “Are you okay?”
Devoid of the ability of speech, I nodded.
He laid his hand on my arm. Shivers shot all the way up mine, down my spine and all the way to my womanly parts. God help me, but I quivered.
That’s when I realized the alcohol was hitting me far worse than I thought. So I did what any red-blooded girl would do. I gave a happy, far too loud, sigh.
Three
One, or ten, rum and cokes later, because after all, who was counting, my new bar pal and I were getting downright chummy. So chummy that my tongue became unglued and I began to play what I like to refer to as “drunken confession time.”
“You know,” I said, grabbing his arm and bending close as if sharing a big secret. “I fink I have a ghosch in my housch.”
